Tuesday, August 2, 2016

It's Kevin Roberts' turn to be thrown to the wolves

I’m no fan of Kevin Roberts. He’s a tireless self-promoter
whose talent for bullshit is breathtaking even by advertising industry
standards. But the extraordinary furore over his comments on gender diversity
illustrates the dangerous extent to which business is now held hostage by the po-faced forces of political correctness.

Roberts, the executive chairman of Saatchi and Saatchi, has
been asked to take leave of absence for saying, in quite mild and unexceptionable
terms, that the debate over gender diversity in the advertising business is
over.

It seems that in business these days, you’re allowed to
express an opinion only if it’s the right one.

We know that the enforcers of political correctness are
intolerant of any departure from ideological orthodoxy. That’s been the case
for a long time. What’s relatively new, and frightening, is that business
leaders are now so intimidated that they capitulate without firing a shot.

The lesson is clear. Roberts has been hung out to dry as a lesson
to anyone else who might be tempted to express a legitimate opinion. And there’s
another, even more potent, lesson here: no one is too big to be safe. Even Roberts’
rarefied status in the advertising world wasn’t enough to protect him once the
Harpies had him in their sights.

Loyalty? Forget about it.

The irony is that Roberts may not have been downplaying women’s
legitimate career ambitions at all, but instead was wondering aloud whether
there were better options for women than relentlessly pursuing advancement as
men do. That was the interpretation placed on his remarks in a discussion (between
women, as it happened) that I heard on the BBC.

Not that it matters. Men are not permitted to discuss such
things. As columnist Grace Dent put it in Britain’s Independent, Roberts has been escorted to “Shamed Man Gulag #231,
policed by a number of perma-furious turquoise-haired fourth-wave feminists”.

New Zealanders should recognise this pattern of events,
because we’ve been here before. In 2011, Northern Employers and Manufacturers
Association head Alasdair Thompson was publicly crucified for suggesting that
menstruation caused women to take sick leave. Shamefully, he lost his job as a
result.

Thompson was thrown to the wolves by the very people who should have supported him and now Roberts has suffered a similar fate. Clearly, no one should expect the gutless business sector to stand up
for people’s right to free speech.

Too much Feminizi linguistic fasicizm [ hat tip homepaddock blog ] . We could think after generations of banging head there would be some relief from the war, or less sensitivity or something . . And now for some forbidden science. The second x chromosome often appears with some genetic function lessened. The most glaring case is Turner’s syndrome where there is no second x chromosome at all. . In between there are genetic aberrations which lead to various forms of pseudo masculinity, and / or social disorders. Aggressive pig headed bully female social justice warriors are right in there.There is a lot more to come from Genetic analysis, and the social justice Warriors are not going to like it.In fact you know, it will be one of those factual untruths. Feministz fasczism in fact.. Enough to turn some girls into gorilla. I am available for ritual beatings at my temple Wat paknam phasi charoen, where I go to pray for my sins.

About Me

I am a freelance journalist and columnist living in the Wairarapa region of New Zealand. In the presence of Greenies I like to boast that I walk to work each day - I've paced it out and it's about 15 metres. I write about all sorts of stuff: politics, the media, music, wine, films, cycling and anything else that piques my interest - even sport, though I admit I don't have the intuitive understanding of sport that most New Zealand males absorb as if by osmosis. I'm a former musician (bass and guitar) with a lifelong love of music that led me to write my book 'A Road Tour of American Song Titles: From Mendocino to Memphis', published by Bateman NZ in July 2016. I've been in journalism for more than 40 years and like many journalists I know a little bit about a lot of things and probably not enough about anything. I have never won any journalism awards.